Home and Garden

Local residents are finding ways to enjoy the outdoors without the elements.
Sun City Carolina Lakes resident Theresa Gahren’s custom-built, screened-in porch allows her to enjoy the outdoors, no matter the season or weather.
“We love it,” she said. “It’s an extension of the inside, outside.”
Gahren enjoys sitting on her extended patio with her German shepherds and uses her porch for eating meals, napping and reading.

What started out as a request for a cardboard cutout train for a birthday party prop grew into a playhouse project in the hands of Lancaster grandfather Justin McDaniel.
McDaniel took the idea of the cardboard cutout train and expanded it into a wooden train playhouse.
“I thought that if we made one out of wood, it would last longer,” McDaniel said.

Some kids have green thumbs, and other are all thumbs, but Lancaster County 4-H has a program that can teach any of them to garden.
The 4-H small garden project sets them up with seeds and plenty of help in getting them well on the way to successful gardening.
By growing gardens of their own, youth involved in the 2016 4-H small garden project experienced first-hand what it means to grow their own food.

Spring is in the air and pruners are in hand.
Your crape myrtles might look a bit scraggly from last year’s growth, but before you commit what one local landscaper calls “crape murder,” please proceed with caution.
Crape myrtles, a landscaping staple across the South, were introduced to the Palmetto State in the late 1700s by the French botanist Andre’ Michaux. The multi-trunked trees have smooth bark and produce a canopy of crepe-like petals in pink, white or purple. They have a long summer blooming period.

CLEMSON – The Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service and Carolina Clear have launched an initiative to help property owners install rain gardens to mitigate potential flood damage and help protect S.C. water quality.

Late blight disease, the most destructive and infectious disease affecting tomatoes and Irish potatoes, has been reported this week on tomatoes in a home garden in Beaufort County.
The diseased plants have been destroyed, but further spread of late blight to other areas of South Carolina is likely if the fungal-like pathogen arrived via spores blown up from Florida. To make matters worse, the cool, cloudy and wet weather in large parts of the state created ideal conditions for escalation.

Three Lancaster families will ring in the holiday spirit Dec. 6 for the Lancaster Garden Club’s 29th annual Christmas Tour of Homes. That 2015 seasonal soundtrack includes hoots with Christy and Doug Barnes, family laughter with Gwen and Audrey Curry and the make-believe march of toy soldiers with Clara and Rusty Reed.

Mazie Bailey has never met a seed she didn’t like.
In one sense, many of the flowers planted at 1890 Old Camden Highway, are new.
But they are actually a new generation of the plants that filled the yard some 13 years ago when Bailey was awarded Yard of the Month by the Garden Clubs of Lancaster.
She is probably one of the best seed harvesters to win the honor.
Bailey’s yard is filled with “recycled annuals.”
The tall scarlet sage growing throughout her beds began as seeds from last year’s crop.

Dori and Dan Schaupp married 37 years ago and have had vegetable garden every year. At their home at 1310 Crestfield Drive, they faced a challenge. The backyard retained water when it rained and became marshy, making gardening next to impossible. Their solution was to create raised garden beds.
In 2004, they began with four raised beds with mainly vegetables and a small space for herbs. Over the years the number of beds has grown.

Sue and Michael Mangum have lived at 136 Evergreen Road for the last 20 years. During this time they have enjoyed keeping their yard well-manicured, neat and full of seasonal blooms. Until now, little did they know that others admired their yard, too. They received an unprecedented five nominations for Yard of the Month recently.
After learning of these nominations and viewing the yard herself, Elaine Atkins with Leaf and Petal Garden Club agreed and selected the Mangums’ yard as the June Yard of the Month.